[FROM THE PAPER] UCLan Spends £3.5 Million on Consultancy Fees

By Sam Johnson - Head of PR & Social Media

Between 2014 and 2015, the University of Central Lancashire spent on £3,504,000 on management consultancy fees according to the University and College Union.

The UCU completed a report into the “Transparency at the top? The second report of senior pay and perks in UK universities” which gave a number of statements for different universities’ expenditures. The reported stated that UCLan had spent a high amount on consultancy fees, an amount which was less than a third of the budget of UCLan Students’ Union.

Comparatively to universities close to us or similar within the complete university guide league tables, the university has spent the most amount of money on consultancy. The University of Plymouth only payed £57,090 and Edinburgh Napier payed £60,000 for management consultancy fees, both universities were ranked either one before or one after UCLan within the league tables.

The report also revealed facts such as the amount of money Vice Chancellors earn, travel expenses, and much more. According to the report, the Vice Chancellor of UCLan did not travel by aeroplane at all during the 2014/2015 academic year. However during this period, according to the report the Vice Chancellor was paid 8.4 times the “all staff salary figure”.

Pluto compared the amount UCLan spent on consultancy fees to the average lecturer’s salary. The average UK lecturer salary according to prospects.ac.uk is around £38,000 meaning that around 92 lecturers could have been employed for that year for the same price.

The amount spend on consultancy fees is over 3 times that of the budget of the Students’ Union and only accounting to 1.8% of UCLan’s expenditure. Meaning that the Students’ Union, which can be seen as they key organisation in terms of engagement with students, gains only 0.6% of UCLan’s expenditure.

Not only this but UCLan’s Vice Chancellor, at the time of this report, increased their emoluments, which is not only their pay but also their expenses. Having an increase by 57% from £125,000 in 2013/2014 to £292,000 2014/2015. Meaning that currently the Vice Chancellor of the University of Central Lancashire has over double the salary of the UK Prime Minister David Cameron according to Parliament.uk.

A spokesman for the University said:

“Students are rightly demanding the best possible experience from their university education and UCLan is determined to meet these expectations in full.
“Last year external consultants played an important role in helping us to make decisions which will have a huge and positive impact on student satisfaction in the years to come. So whether it’s assisting us to appoint senior staff, advising on new internal structures or helping us to devise and unveil our new £200 million Masterplan development, consultants have made a valuable contribution.
“Our investment in consultants has helped make the University more self-sufficient in critical areas of operation but we review their use on an on-going basis.”

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